


love, i get so lost sometimes

by LilyEllison



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: College, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson at Columbia, MattElektra Shiptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 01:16:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyEllison/pseuds/LilyEllison
Summary: Once, in college, Matt brought her roses.





	love, i get so lost sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Since the show is inconsistent about the timeline, I went with a version of events where Matt and Elektra dated during undergrad, not law school. It just works better for me.
> 
> Written for the MattElektra Shiptober prompt "heart" (Day 8) and my MattElektra Bingo square "You look like an asshole." Thanks to Mrs Gordo and to Quietshade for reading and putting up with me!

The truth was that Matthew liked pain. Elektra preferred to avoid it. There were plenty of other, better things to feel, after all. But she was certainly capable of dishing it out.

She thought about that now as Matthew knocked on her door for the third time in an hour.

"I know you're in there, Elektra," he said. He spoke just loud enough to be heard through the door — he would never shout, would never make a scene like that. But the conviction in his voice made it clear she wasn't fooling him by killing the music and endeavoring to keep quiet. She had never been able to achieve the level of focus that she needed to mask her heartbeat when he was anywhere around. Frustrating, but something she refused to think too hard about.

She closed her eyes. She was beyond sick of staring at the ceiling in her little campus-adjacent pied-á-terre. Right now, the two of them should be sipping clandestine cocktails on the roof of the faculty house, or sneaking into the pool to go skinny-dipping, or racing through the streets in a zippy little car. Or if she had to be stuck here, she should at least be pressing him into this mattress beneath her, his lips reddened and his hair messy and his breath coming fast.

"Sweetheart, please. I just...I'm sorry."

Part of her was aching to let him in. But she couldn't. Not until he'd had a proper chance to feel terribly guilty and beat himself to smithereens.

_Memo to self_, she thought with the trace of a grin, _inquire as to whether any of the monasteries in Europe still make hairshirts. Or perhaps check eBay. _Matthew had a birthday coming up.

She heard his restless footsteps pacing back and forth down the hallway and she pressed her lips together. If she was being honest with herself, there was the tiniest of possibilities that she was punishing him as much for her sake as his own.

He'd blown her off to study for an exam that he could've passed with his eyes closed and — her heart gave a sweet, painful thump as she automatically filled in the joke he'd make if he could hear her thoughts. The smirky look he'd get — the one that made her want to punch him and kiss him in equal measures.

It was also possible that she was punishing him for her own guilt. _Guilt_. It had been an all-but-foreign concept to her before she had stupidly fallen in love with her mark. But, oh, had he given her an education. Both by example and by the way it turned her insides to ice when she imagined him finding out. She dreamed about it sometimes — that she'd be crossing campus and she'd see Stick talking to Matthew, telling him he was just a _mission_, ruining everything before she had a chance to carry out her plan. The _look_ that would be on Matthew’s face.

So, yes, she knew now how guilt felt, just as she now knew love. It was a tremendous shame that the two seemed to be inseparable. Matthew loved so hard — his city, his roommate, his father’s memory — that he practically crushed himself under the weight of it. And now it was all crushing her.

So all of this was his own fault, in more ways than one.

* * *

Matt knew it was all his fault. He wasn’t sure exactly what had set Elektra off, though. Sure, he’d held firm against her attempts to lure him away from studying a couple of nights ago. But that had been absolutely necessary. His grades were slipping, and lately he’d been dreaming too often of his dad’s voice, weighted down with disappointment.

But there had been disappointment in Elektra’s voice that night, too. Something different from her usual good-natured wheedling. He’d told himself it wasn’t a big deal — they would have plenty of time to be together after he passed the test. But now the exam was behind him and she was the one who refused to be lured out.

He was angry at first —_ fine, be that way_ — but it had quickly worn away into worry.

This wasn’t the first time they’d fought, of course. They fought all the time. They were always debating, their words crossing and sparking off each other like blades. They sparred in the ring, too, sometimes even inflicting real damage, though never quite on purpose. But none of that ever seemed to hurt Elektra, even when he caught her with a punch he expected her to evade. She’d just smile.

So this was new.

Elektra’s feelings could be hurt. Elektra wasn’t invincible.

Elektra was a real person, not just a fever dream. He _knew_ that, of course, but sometimes it seemed like she’d walked right out of some masturbatory fantasy, the perfect cool girl. He wasn’t glad he had upset her, but on some level it was a welcome reminder that she was just as human as he was.

Now he had to figure out how to make it up to her. To show her that he really cared.

But knocking on her door wasn’t getting him anywhere. He laid the bouquet of roses he’d brought for her on her doorstep — right alongside the one from this morning that was already starting to smell of decay. Then he walked back to his dorm with his head held low and stuffed so full of longing that he found himself actually relying on his cane.

Foggy made a soft noise of surprise when the door opened. He turned down the music coming from his computer speakers.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s a day of the week that ends in ‘-day.’ Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?”

Bitterness settled out of his words, like coffee grounds collecting at the bottom of a mug. Was there anyone who Matt hadn’t disappointed lately?

“She’s mad at me,” Matt said tersely. “I screwed up.” He couldn’t hold back a dejected sigh.

And because Foggy Nelson was the best friend that a sad orphan from Hell’s Kitchen could ask for, he sounded completely genuine when he said, “I’m sorry, man.”

Matt made a little huff of acknowledgment and flopped down on his bed, letting the spirit of mope overtake him. Foggy turned back to whatever he had been doing on his computer. From the slow but deliberate pace of his typing, Matt guessed he was working on an essay for his history class. Instant messaging would be faster. Punjabi would be much slower.

Matt was just about to kick his shoes off and curl up under the covers when Foggy spoke. “So, what have you tried?”

“What?”

“To apologize. You _have_ tried, right?”

“She won’t even talk to me,” Matt said, knowing his voice sounded like that of a pouty six-year-old. “I left flowers on her doorstep. And I tried telling her I’m sorry from outside, though who knows if she heard me.”

“So what you need is to get her attention?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said flatly. “I guess.”

Foggy jumped up from his chair, rubbing his hands together in excitement. “I know just what you have to do.”

* * *

Elektra didn’t know what to do. If she stirred from her apartment, Matthew was likely to pounce, and he hadn’t grovelled quite enough to earn that yet. But she was growing desperate enough for distraction that she’d actually opened her Intro to American Studies textbook. She was even considering doing an assignment.

Elektra wasn’t much for studying — especially not for some tedious undergraduate history requirement — but she wasn’t a terrible student, either. She absorbed enough from the lectures she didn’t blow off and some occasional reading that she tended to do well on exams.

And she didn’t hate — maybe even loved — her language classes. She was an excellent mimic — she had to be, and she’d had years of practice — and her memory was top-notch, so she’d always had an ease with them. She could admit there was a certain appeal to being good at something other than your standard treachery and death. She was adding Spanish and Turkish to her existing knowledge of French, Greek, English and Japanese, plus the bits and pieces from all over that she had picked up in her travels.

When Stick had first outlined this mission to her, Elektra had expected to find the entire thing a drag — posing as a college student wasn’t exactly sexy and her mark was almost guaranteed to be an unwashed cretin. But she had been very surprised. First, by the tiny fizz of interest she felt when reading through course descriptions and selecting her major.

And second, by the money. Her father was overjoyed when she “changed her mind” and decided to attend college after all. Her “choice” of Columbia especially thrilled him. He loved New York, and he loved the idea of his daughter in the Ivy League. He’d upped her allowance extravagantly and lined up a place for her to stay right off campus, so she wouldn’t have to commute the few dozen blocks to Midtown. Elektra knew by now that money was Hugo Natchios’ way of showing love. It was all his own parents had cared about, which was why he’d made so much of it.

But, of course, the thing that had surprised her most about the mission was Matthew Murdock himself.

Stick had told her Murdock’s weakness was that he got too attached. That he would never achieve his true potential as a warrior until he could be broken of it. And that weakness was exactly what they were planning to use against him. Elektra was going to get him attached — and then she would use that attachment to break him away from his college life, to bring him into the war where he belonged.

But Stick had never told Elektra about Matthew’s strength — about how easy it was to get attached to _him_. About how he could crawl right under your skin and make you want to be near him, always.

It would be OK in the end, though. It had to be. If she carried out the plan, they would get to be together, to stay together. Stick wouldn’t be pleased that Elektra had gotten in over her head, but she knew he’d put up with it if it meant Matthew fought on their side. Stick seemed curiously invested in Matthew’s future with the Chaste.

And Matthew would understand, too. Maybe not right at first, but she could persuade him. Fighting the Hand wasn't _clean_ work but it was still good, wasn’t it? Better than the alternative, anyway. And Matthew had it in him, she knew he—

Elektra realized that she hadn’t heard any sounds in the hallway for a while. She closed her textbook with a snap and walked across the apartment to crack open the door.

Roses. He’d left her more _roses_.

She closed the door and sighed.

* * *

“That'll never work,” Matt said. “Elektra isn't that kind of girl.”

“You just said you brought her flowers.”

“Yeah, but roses are...expensive. Kind of. She likes nice things. It needs to be something impressive.”

“No, no, you’re thinking about this all wrong. I don't know Elektra very well, but I do know the guys on this campus. And I know they've all been trying to out-cool themselves to impress her. So the only way to actually impress her will be to look like an idiot.”

Matt laughed. “You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?”

“Not at all,” Foggy said, joining in the laughter. “But it sounded good, right? Enough to convince a jury of my peer?” He clapped his hand on Matt’s shoulder.

Matt rubbed his hand over his face. “This is such a bad idea.”

“But you’re going to do it anyway,” Foggy said. Matt could hear his grin. “I think I know where we can get the stuff you need.”

* * *

Some idiot was blasting music downstairs. Elektra grimaced and gave up on her assignment for good. She wasn’t having much luck concentrating anyway.

She stood up and began to pace, wondering how long to give it before trying to take care of the situation. It would be one thing if it was at least decent music, but it was something old. Eighties. Something from a movie, maybe? It sounded familiar.

And there was something else. Someone was chanting?

Other voices joined in quickly. And they weren’t chanting just anything.

“E-lek-tra! E-lek-tra!”

Holy shit.

Elektra pulled the curtain back just a little so she could peek out. There were a bunch of drunken students gathered in a knot on the sidewalk below her window, and right in the center was Matthew, holding up an actual _boombox_ in what was literally the most ridiculous display she had ever seen. Right beside him was his roommate — Froggy or Misty or whatever his name was. (Elektra knew his name was Foggy but it amused her to pretend she didn’t. She also liked to pretend she wasn’t envious of him. It was beneath her to be envious of anyone, but especially of scruffy, exuberant sons of butchers.)

Elektra quickly pulled back from the window. She was not going to respond to this. It was juvenile and embarrassing and—

They were still chanting her goddamn name. The entire building would hate her. There was only one quick way to get them to stop.

She opened the window.

The roar of a dozen rowdy students clapping and cheering immediately greeted her. Then they quieted, clearly waiting for her to speak.

“You look like an asshole!” she yelled. But for some unknowable reason a grin was breaking across her face. “Just come the fuck upstairs, Matthew!”

They all went wild, but she immediately shut the window and yanked the curtains closed as she waited, hoping they would disperse quickly. She had to give Matthew a grudging bit of respect for getting her to break before she was good and ready. She was feeling that familiar feeling — the one where she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to kiss him or to punch him.

When he knocked this time, she opened the door right away. “Fuck you,” she said to him, but her voice had laughter in it.

“Please,” Matthew panted, and damn if that didn’t work like a charm on her.

Her choice made, she reached out and grabbed a handful of his shirt, pulling him inside and bringing his mouth down to hers.

Elektra let him make it up to her, riding first his face and then his cock until she was lit up, glowing from the inside. No one else could ever make her feel like this. Like all the bloodstains were only skin deep and she could slough them off like a snake and be new. Like, at her core, she was as much candle flame as knife blade.

Lying against him after, her hair fanned across the pillow, her nails dancing lightly over his chest, she finally told him the truth.

“I can’t stand roses, Matthew. They’re cloying. And common.”

He breathed out a shadow of a laugh. “What do you like, then?” he asked, his voice low and lush in her ears. She wanted to sleep inside it, somewhere the world couldn’t touch her.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She nuzzled into his shoulder. “You’re lucky I’m even speaking to you after that...spectacle. I’m certainly not giving up any secrets.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, long enough that she thought he might be drifting off to sleep.

“Just one secret,” he murmured through the darkness, turning to kiss her head. “What was it, the other night?”

Then it was her turn to let the silence stretch.

“Elektra?”

“An anniversary,” she said hesitantly. “Of a day I’d like to forget.”

He stroked her hair without asking more. He wasn’t one to pry, her Matthew. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. It was one of the things she liked about him, in the guiltiest of ways.

This time, she knew he was almost asleep when she whispered, “I never really knew my mother.”

It was true about both of them. The only thing Elektra knew about the woman who gave birth to her was that she was dead. And Christina Natchios had died, too, within a year of Elektra’s arrival at the ambassador’s residence. Cancer. All Elektra really remembered of her was a blur of hushed voices and hospital rooms, always with Hugo’s roses beside the bed. He had been all she had, after. A man who was gentle and genial even through his grief, but who had little time for a little girl.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Matthew said. Even if Elektra hadn’t known, the way he said it would have given away that this was a pain they shared.

And that ache in his throat was what kept her there with him, what kept her from giving in to the sudden flutter beneath her skin that told her to run from this, from him. The old man’s voice in her head that said if she let herself open up to him, let herself love him, all she was doing was betraying herself and marking him for certain death.

But Elektra was tired of the pain. And it hurt less here, with him. With someone who _understood_.

So she stayed. She stayed and she vowed that whenever the reckoning came, she’d make sure he survived it.

She’d do anything.


End file.
